Kate Upton Opens Up About Being Sexually Harassed and Body Shamed for Years

Since she has risen to fame, it seems as if supermodel Kate Upton was being celebrated for her beauty and her body. It turns out that when she was starting out in the industry, she often experienced the exact opposite.

It started last January 31, in the midst of the #MeToo revelations, when Kate tweeted, “It’s disappointing that such an iconic women’s brand @Guess is still empowering Paul Marciano as their creative director #metoo.” Paul has since then called her claims “absolutely false,” leading to Kate revealing traumatic experiences with the fashion designer to Time.

When she was 18, Kate details a meeting she had with Paul wherein he grabbed her breasts to make “sure they’re real.” He then continued to touch her thighs, arms, shoulders and neck, and then started smelling and kissing her. He then insisted on walking her up to her hotel room until photographer Yu Tsai (who also confirmed the incident to the magazine) had to step in. Kate found out the next day that she had been fired from the shoot: “Someone had called my agency to say I had gotten fat and would not be needed.”

This was not the only disturbing experience Kate had with the creative director. She recalls being called “disgusting” and even heard Paul once say, “Get that fat pig off my set.”

“It took a huge toll on my confidence and self-worth. I started slumping my shoulders to hide my breast size, wearing baggy clothes, started despising my own body,” she recalls.

After recovering from the trauma and constantly blaming herself after those incidents, Kate made it a personal mission to promote body positivity. One of her efforts include a project with her trainer David Kirsch, where they are designing workouts for young models to help them embrace their healthiest size. The model is reminding us to be empowered with the bodies that we were born in, no matter what other toxic people might say.